Estimating the Costs of
Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions

David Montgomery
Charles River Associates

EDITOR'S NOTE: Montgomery states in his talk that it could be
very expensive to try to meet near-term targets and timetables
for emissions reductions, based on analyses of the economic
impacts. He sites alternatives that can achieve the same climate
goals at much lower costs, including: accumulating more
scientific information about climate change; investing in
research and development on energy efficient carbon-free energy
supply technologies; avoiding placement of resources into very
expensive near-term emission reductions, but instead putting them
as a hedge into finding the kind of technologies that will make
it possible to reduce emissions much more cheaply in the future;
and planning for only very modest and very low-cost emission
reductions in the near term, until these new energy sources
become available. His contention is that such alternatives
represent the best direction indicated by the analysis of the
economic costs of emission reductions.